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TS Wins Right To Legal Name Change in PA
By the Associated Press
Contributed by Elizabeth Parker
PITTSBURGH, Pa.
A man who has lived as a woman for 22 years but can't
afford a sex-change operation won the right to legally change his name to
Lisa.
Brian Harris was denied the name change by a county judge, but a
three-judge panel of the Superior Court said other steps he has taken to
change his appearance are enough.
"As Tammy Wynette so aptly observed, sometimes it's hard to be a woman.
This is especially true" in this case, Judge Peter Paul Olszewski wrote
Thursday for the majority in the 2-1 ruling.
Harris, 39, filed for the name change last year, and his counselor said
Harris frequently runs into problems because his driver's license identifies
him as a man.
Harris took estrogen and underwent surgery for breast implants and to
feminize his face, but he couldn't afford genital sex-change surgery, said
his counselor, Dr. Constance Saunders.
Harris told Judge Gerard Long he has used the name Lisa socially for 22
years. He said taking the name legally would avoid confusing others and
embarrassment when asked to produce identification.
Long denied Harris' request, basing his ruling on a state Supreme Court
decision that denied name changes for two other transsexuals who had received
hormone therapy but not surgery to feminize their faces, torsos or genitalia.
Harris' facial and breast operations make his case different, the
Superior Court panel said.
"We believe that the better-reasoned approach is to require such a
petitioner to demonstrate that he or she is permanently committed to living
as a member of the opposite sex," Olszewski wrote.
The dissenting judge, Thomas Saylor, said allowing the name change
"would be to perpetuate a fiction, since the fact remains that petitioner is
anatomically a male."
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